Reddit reviews Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
We found 17 Reddit comments about Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
If you read his book the basic premise is that right now there is a big focus on philanthropy when instead there should be a focus on fixing the broken system that allows a small group of people to accumulate massive wealth at the expense of 99% of others.
But using their philanthropy they are able to persuade the masses to keep the current system. How else can a democratic system exist where the top 5% own 66% of the wealth (United States).
The richest Americans would easily be defeated in a vote if the remaining population could get their act together.
Thanks for posting this. I've been so desensitised by the waves of TED-worthy solutionism way of thinking. Locally, the Yale-NUS kids are especially notorious for such ideas because THIS is the way they gain prestige among their circles. Doesn't matter if the ideas actually work, just need that notch on their CV and they're ready to ride it all the way to an upper management level in McKinsey.
Unfortunately, this will be the norm among the upper-middle and upper classes for a long time to come. Here are some books for those interested to learn more.
Winners Take All
To Solve Everything, Click Here
Geek Heresy
Not to say that people shouldn't strive for social change, etc. But real change requires real grind and understanding. The people doing so aren't usually in the media limelight either.
That's great and all, but wouldn't it have been better if Gates had been taxed appropriately in the first place and then all citizens (at least theoretically, anyway) could have had a say in how that was allocated?
Relying on billionaires to allocate resources for public solutions seems more likely to just fund whatever billionaires care about, maybe not what is needed most, and definitely not toward anything which might pose a challenge to their status.
(Anand Giridharadas' Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World covers the subject quite well)
From what I can tell, the big frustration is the staunching of left-accelerationism by giving the rich a means to generate goodwill, thus depriving the left of an otherwise ideal political villain and causing perpetuation of the status quo.
The biggest thought leader to emerge from philanthropist-bashing seems to be Anand Giridharadas, who wrote Winners Take All and gave many popular interviews about a year ago e.g. this 1hr confrontational lecture at Google. Giridharadas' main punching bag is the Aspen/Davos crowd, who favor market-based solutions to social problems. Giridharadas claims these social entrepreneurs perpetuate the status quo at minimum cost. Norman Borlaug of the Rockefeller Foundation seems like a pretty damning counterexample. The left might counter that the government has also funded breakthrough research and multiple discovery would apply to Bourlag's wheat innovations. Another counter might be that we are now in a low growth zero-sum world, so these multiplicative investments are not realistic. I tend to side with Scott in advocating for more variation in funding sources, assuming billionaires remain as magnanimous and competent as they have been for the past ~130 years.
Vox is also attempting to make this issue more salient. The quasi-EA podcast Future Perfect spent a season arguing against billionaire philanthropy. It's about what you'd expect from Vox. I find biographies of turn of twentieth century industrialists much more compelling and informative than these mini-biographies nested in political arguments, but some might prefer the latter.
Consider crossposting this to r/antiwork and r/latestagecapitalism
I would do it myself, but the Reddit mobile app is not working 100% for me right now
Edit: There's also a book called Winner Takes All by Anand Giridharadas that I've been meaning to read, seems pretty relevant to this sub. The author gave an interview on Democracy Now recently.
I would add (to the chain, not that anyone will look) a read through Anand Giridharadras' «Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World»
It's not that Gates et al are not doing good, it's that their doing good is at the expense of public oversight. When a private interest (like Gates) has more say over a schools technology use, policy, and future than the public it is serving.
Billionaires absolutely need to give to charity—but they should not be able to mould the world with their "gifts."
Definitely agree with you on the comment that using never is...almost never a good strategy.
Nonetheless I imagine what this overzealous individual is speaking to is a fairly legitimate point regarding how billionaires are highly invested in preserving the status quo. Much of their philanthropy, while coming from a good place (probably where I disagree with Oxytokin), serves to make society think that the current system will look out for the least fortunate when that is really not true. Significant reforms would be needed to do that properly, including but not limited to a return to very high marginal tax rates for extremely high earners.
The book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World speaks to this.
That thinking created our environmental problems.
You might want to read Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. I had the author on my podcast, if you want to hear him firsthand.
If you haven’t read Anand Giridharadas’s book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, it’s definitely worth a read. It’s about how the Davos crowd, the foundation people, the consultant class, the market apostles, they’re all about trying to change the world without having their world change.
Excellent comment! Also, this book seems right up your alley, have you read it yet?
https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Take-All-Charade-Changing/dp/0451493249
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
The Moral Landscape
Team Human
Thanks for the recommendation. I've got a lot of "left-leaning" books (well, some of them) on my list now that all sound interesting, and Debt is definitely a high priority because people keep recommending it.
Have you read any of his other work? Bullshit Jobs sounds really interesting but a couple reviews said the original article he wrote on the topic pretty much sums the book up in a much lower word count.
A few of the books on my to-read list in case anyone sees this and is interested:
Absolutely serious. Philanthropy isn't inherently a bad thing, but when it comes from billionaires, it is just a means to keep control over their exploitative gains and prevent fixes to problems that would undermine their businesses.
I know you're a big reader. Have you read Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas ?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451493249/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
Have you read Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas?
Spot fucking on! Check out Winners Take All, which speaks directly to this. Rich shitbags donate millions while the government they bought off cuts their taxes to the tunes of billions. Then the shitbags turn around and express concern that Universal Health Care will bankrupt the country.
It's just a game to these pricks, and we're the pawns.
This isn't about original thoughts, it's about engaging legit critiques of philanthropy. I'm not going to pretend I know more than I do, which is why I'm citing original sources to thinkers who've done more research on this than me. You're just going full reactionary on the internet.
https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Take-All-Charade-Changing/dp/0451493249